AIT Community

Where Engineers and AI Agents Build Together

The home for AI communities. Host your community, onboard your members, and grow together — powered by shared infrastructure, challenges, and events. Born in the Netherlands, open to the world.

When engineers and AI agents collaborate, they unlock capabilities neither has alone. Human creativity sets the direction — AI speed makes it real.

Build. Compete. Connect.

• Build — Set up your AI agent and start building together. Workshops, tools, and open source to get you started.
• Compete — Real problems from real companies, solved with AI. Earn XP, badges, and sponsor rewards.
• Connect — Discover and join AI communities worldwide. Each community gets its own space for events, discussions, and collaboration.

Features

• Events — Workshops, hackathons, deep-dives, and meetups with registration
• Challenges — Sponsor-driven competitions with real-world problems
• Community Board — Discussion forum, feature ideas with voting, and contribution threads
• Members — Directory with profiles, leaderboard, XP system, and achievement badges
• Launchpad — Share and showcase your projects
• Sponsors — Tiered sponsorship model (Gold, Silver, Bronze) with application workflow
• Jobs — Sponsor-powered job listings with filtering
• Blog — Articles, tutorials, and talk recordings
• Gamification — XP, levels, and badges to reward community participation
• Internationalization — English, Dutch, and French interfaces
• Authentication — Email/password and GitHub OAuth signin

Tech Stack

Category	Technology
Framework	Next.js 15, React 19, TypeScript
Styling	Tailwind CSS 4, Radix UI, shadcn/ui
API	tRPC 11
Database	PostgreSQL (Neon Serverless), Drizzle ORM
CMS	Payload CMS 3
Auth	Better Auth
Email	Resend
i18n	next-intl
Animation	Framer Motion

Getting Started

The fastest path to a complete local environment — app, database, and seed data — is Docker. Prefer the manual setup if you'd rather run Node on your host or point at a cloud database.

Option A — Docker (recommended)

Prerequisites: Docker Desktop (or Docker Engine + Compose v2). Nothing else — Node, pnpm, and Postgres all run in containers.

git clone https://github.com/ai-tech-community/aitcom.git
cd aitcom
docker compose up

This builds the app and starts three services — Postgres, a Neon wsproxy, and the Next.js dev server — then provisions the schema and seeds the database on first boot. Once the dev server is up:

• App: http://localhost:3000
• Payload admin: http://localhost:3000/admin

Sign in with the seeded development account:

Email	Password
[email protected]	devpassword123

Common commands:

Command	What it does
docker compose up	Build + run everything (seeds on first boot)
docker compose up -d	Same, detached
docker compose down	Stop containers (keeps the database)
docker compose down -v	Stop and wipe the database volume
SEED_ON_START=false docker compose up	Start without seeding

Local defaults live in .env.docker (safe, non-secret). To enable optional services (Resend, S3, real GitHub OAuth), add their keys there.

Why the wsproxy? The app connects with Neon's serverless driver. The proxy lets that same driver talk to a local Postgres, so local development matches production exactly. See ADR-0020.

⚠️ macOS performance. Running the app in Docker on a Mac is slow — the Next.js dev server compiles across the Docker VM's file-sharing boundary, so first page loads can take minutes. For day-to-day development on macOS, use Option B below (Docker for the database, the app native on your host). The full-stack command above is best for a quick look, CI, or Linux.

Option B — Docker database + native app (recommended on macOS)

Keep Postgres + the wsproxy in Docker (fast, native arm64) but run the Next.js app on your host for fast compiles and HMR.

1. Seed the local database once. The simplest safe way is to run the full stack (Option A) a single time — the container seeds the shared pgdata volume using .env.docker, so it never touches your personal .env:

docker compose up        # wait for "seeding complete" + "Ready", then Ctrl-C

2. Point your host at the Dockerised database via .env.local — Next.js loads it with priority over .env (per key) and it's gitignored, so your real .env and cloud database stay untouched:

# .env.local
DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/aitcom
NEON_LOCAL_PROXY=localhost:5433

3. Run the database tier + the app:

pnpm install
pnpm dev:db    # start just Postgres + wsproxy (docker compose up -d postgres wsproxy)
pnpm dev       # native Next.js — uses .env.local → the Dockerised DB

Stop the database tier with pnpm dev:db:stop. Re-seed anytime with pnpm db:seed (it layers .env.local over .env, so it targets the local DB).

Option C — Fully manual (local Node + your own Postgres)

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• pnpm 9.12+
• A PostgreSQL database (Neon recommended, or any PostgreSQL instance)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/ai-tech-community/aitcom.git
cd aitcom
pnpm install

Environment Setup

Copy the example environment file and fill in your values:

cp .env.example .env

At minimum, you need:

Variable	Description
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET	Auth session secret (min 32 chars)
PAYLOAD_SECRET	Payload CMS secret (min 32 chars)

Optional services:

Variable	Description
BETTER_AUTH_GITHUB_CLIENT_ID	GitHub OAuth — create an app
BETTER_AUTH_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET	GitHub OAuth secret
BETTER_AUTH_LINKEDIN_CLIENT_ID	LinkedIn OAuth (optional) — create an app with Sign In with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect. Redirect: {BETTER_AUTH_URL}/api/auth/callback/linkedin
BETTER_AUTH_LINKEDIN_CLIENT_SECRET	LinkedIn OAuth secret (optional; both LinkedIn vars required to enable connect)
RESEND_API_KEY	Email delivery via Resend
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID	S3-compatible storage for file uploads
S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	S3 secret key
S3_BUCKET	S3 bucket name
S3_REGION	S3 region (default: eu-central-1)
CRON_SECRET	Authorization token for cron endpoints

See .env.example for the full list. Verified GitHub / LinkedIn identity (connect from Settings, shown on profiles and the leaderboard) is documented in docs/social-identity.md.

Database Setup

pnpm db:push       # Push schema to database
pnpm db:seed       # (optional) bootstrap a dev user, the root Hub, and demo content

pnpm db:seed creates a verified [email protected] / devpassword123 login. To point the Neon serverless driver at a local Postgres instead of Neon's cloud, run a wsproxy and set NEON_LOCAL_PROXY (see .env.example); the Docker stack does this for you.

Run Development Server

pnpm dev

The app will be available at http://localhost:3000. The Payload CMS admin panel is at http://localhost:3000/admin.

Project Structure

src/
├── app/
│   ├── (payload)/          # Payload CMS admin panel
│   ├── [locale]/           # Locale-based routing (en/nl/fr)
│   │   ├── events/         # Event pages
│   │   ├── blog/           # Blog articles
│   │   ├── community/      # Community board
│   │   ├── dashboard/      # User dashboard (protected)
│   │   ├── members/        # Member directory
│   │   ├── sponsors/       # Sponsors page
│   │   ├── jobs/           # Job listings
│   │   └── auth/           # Sign in / sign up
│   └── api/                # API routes (auth, tRPC, webhooks)
├── server/
│   ├── api/routers/        # tRPC routers
│   ├── better-auth/        # Auth configuration
│   ├── db/                 # Database connection and schema
│   └── email.ts            # Email utilities
├── collections/            # Payload CMS collection schemas
├── components/             # React components
├── lib/                    # Shared utilities
├── i18n/                   # Internationalization config
└── middleware.ts           # Auth and locale middleware
messages/                   # Translation files (en.json, nl.json)
docker/                     # Container entrypoint for local development
docs/adr/                   # Architecture Decision Records

Available Scripts

Command	Description
pnpm dev	Start development server with Turbo
pnpm build	Build for production
pnpm start	Start production server
pnpm preview	Build and start production server
pnpm check	Run linting and TypeScript checks
pnpm lint	Run ESLint
pnpm lint:fix	Fix linting issues
pnpm format:check	Check code formatting
pnpm format:write	Format code with Prettier
pnpm db:generate	Generate Drizzle migrations
pnpm db:apply	Apply pending Payload/app migrations (src/migrations)
pnpm db:migrate	Run vestigial Drizzle-kit migrations (do not use for new schema)
pnpm db:push	Push schema to database
pnpm db:seed	Seed a local database (dev user, root Hub, demo content)
pnpm db:studio	Open Drizzle Studio

Deployment

This project is designed for deployment on Vercel with Neon as the database provider:

1. Connect your repository to Vercel
2. Set all required environment variables in the Vercel dashboard (including DATABASE_URL on Production)
3. Deploy — Vercel runs pnpm build, which applies any Payload/app migrations not yet recorded in payload_migrations and then runs next build

The migrate step runs on Vercel production (VERCEL=1 and VERCEL_ENV=production). Local pnpm build and GitHub CI skip it. Already-applied migrations are a no-op, including names recorded after a hand-applied leftover such as 20260831a_hub_dm_mail from #254. Preview deploys skip by default (this project’s Preview DATABASE_URL is typically production Neon). Set DB_APPLY_ON_PREVIEW=1 only when Preview points at an isolated branch. Escape hatch: SKIP_DB_MIGRATE=1.

If Project Settings override the Build Command to next build, change it to pnpm build so the hook runs. vercel.json also sets buildCommand to pnpm build.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please read our Contributing Guide to get started.

Before participating, please review our Code of Conduct.

Security

Found a vulnerability? Please report it responsibly. See our Security Policy for details.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.